According to TPM, America’s favorite never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste administration is preparing to ram through a number of restrictions to our Second Amendment civil rights as early as Jan 15. The idea behind this strategy is to strike while people’s heightened emotions are still scrambling common sense:
The White House and gun control supporters are gearing up for a whirlwind month, with plans to pass reform legislation before outrage over the Sandy Hook massacre has a chance to fade. …
House Democrats are moving ahead with their own plans as well. On Friday, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), chair of the newly created Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, announced the appointment of 12 vice chairs, including Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), the body’s leading voice on gun control. According to a Democratic aide, the group plans to release its recommendations in early February and is already organizing public hearings on the issue.
Obama has personally identified an assault weapons ban and limits on ammunition magazine size as top priorities. Other possible reforms could include background check requirements for purchases at gun shows, a loophole that’s helped create a huge market of off-record arms purchases.
Pro-gun groups have dominated Congress in recent years and, while lawmakers approved by the National Rifle Association have mostly kept their heads down in recent weeks, any legislation could face an difficult path to passage, or even a vote, especially in the Republican-led House.
Even though data, history, and facts show that a well-armed citizenry actually reduces crime and that no gun control laws currently on the books or being proposed would have stopped the Sandy Hook mass-murder, none of that matters. All that matters is handing Obama a victory and the NRA and the Right a defeat.
One area TPM overlooks in its otherwise solid reporting, though, is how important the media’s role will be when it comes to jamming through these pointless restrictions of our rights.
If past is prologue, the media is likely working with the Obama White House already in order to coordinate the roll-out of the legislation in a way powerful enough to either intimidate the GOP-controlled House to pass it or to make them pay a political price in 2014 if they don’t.
More than once, the media and the Obama administration have been caught red-handed coordinating in this way. And as we saw within seconds of the Sandy Hook story breaking, the media has already coordinated its message to exploit the tragedy as a means to push gun control. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that, with actual legislation on the line, the media won’t push even harder.
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